


Take Me (As You Found Me)

by kaycares



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 06:40:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3478208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaycares/pseuds/kaycares
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or The One Where Derek and Lydia Take a Road Trip </p><p>She meets him after Allison's funeral - after the luncheon at the McCalls' because the Argents' apartment is too small for the crowd it draws, after Scott transitions from co-host who takes coats and hands out drinks to catatonic survivor on the couch in the living room, after a still weak Stiles refuses to leave with his dad and dozes off on the couch beside his best friend instead, after her heart starts to beat its wings wildly within the cage of her ribs and suddenly she can't breathe. Just <em>after</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Me (As You Found Me)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my submission for the third round of the TW Rare Pair Exchange. It's set post-3B with some minor alterations from canon in regards to season 4, especially for Lydia. Be warned, an abortion plays a major role in this story. It's by no means graphic, but it is the source of a lot of grief and angst.

It’s the first week of summer when Lydia Martin is _supposed_ to be in Cabo that she realizes she’s exhausted all of her friend options. At this point, she’s probably exhausted the pack, too, but there’s some kind of invisible force field that keeps them from separating (even in death - Allison’s sweatshirt is in Scott’s locker, Erica’s bracelet is on the floor in a corner of the Hale House remains, Derek keeps Boyd’s watch locked away somewhere, Aiden's aftershave still clings to a sweater she hasn’t washed). So when she calls Stiles to tell him she needs a ride the following morning, she knows that he’ll say yes out of a) friendship b) pack obligation or c) guilt, and she’s not picky enough to care which one. And his friendship or his pack ties or his guilty conscious make him say yes, as predicted. So there’s not really any problem until the following morning when she opens the front door to find no Stiles on her front porch. 

Instead, she finds Derek Hale. 

"What are you doing here?" Lydia asks when she's composed herself enough to not just stand there and gape. Her lips form a tight line and her hand rests firmly on her hip in a show of annoyance that masks her mounting inner panic. (Because there was a plan. There was a carefully laid out plan to handle this foolishly made mistake, and now Stiles has already managed to ruin it.) It only slightly helps that Derek looks as uncomfortable as she is panicked, uncrossing his arms to rub at the back of his neck and staring intently at the floorboards beneath his feet. 

"Stiles called this morning. He said you needed a ride?" 

"Which is Stiles. _Stiles_ is my ride. So why are you here?" 

"He said Malia's supposed to shift today, and she's still struggling to stay in control, so he and Scott are with her." He stops rubbing his neck to refold his arms over his chest. "Didn't he _call_ you?" 

"No," she says, tight-lipped and seething. She would kill Stiles Stilinski with her own two hands if she didn't know it'd be twice as painful to feel the way his soul ripped itself free somewhere inside her head and her chest and her bones. "He never called. I thought you were him." 

Derek is silently watching her. _Intently_ watching her in a way that forms a tight knot of panic in the pit of her stomach. Stiles may be the brain behind whatever schemes she hasn't thought up on her own, but his Adderall-riddled mind tends to be a little oblivious, especially in this post-nogitsune phase of his life. She has a feeling Stiles wouldn't watch her like this. And she's so sure Derek is already piecing the puzzle together that she almost blurts out a half-hearted confession when he opens his mouth. She's grateful for the part of her self conscious that stops her when he only says, "Well, I'm here now. So... are you ready?" 

She raises an eyebrow, letting long seconds tick past when he could withdraw his offer and go on his merry way. The problem is that somewhere beneath grief-induced mistakes, Derek Hale is an upstanding guy who knows she needs a ride (and there's a part of this where she's to blame, but she can't admit to that right now). So he doesn't take the bait. "You're going to drive me?" 

"That's what I'm here for," he says with an easy shrug. "Unless you have another ride?" 

But she doesn't; that's the problem. She's scared away all of her friends who aren't six feet under. She's left with the pack, and even their support is treading thin ice these days. She's never been a beggar before in her life, but she's heard they can't be choosers. 

So Derek Hale it is. 

She waits another beat, giving him one last chance to speak now or forever hold his peace (Hold it he will). "I'll go get my bag," she says affirmatively before turning on her heel. But she doesn't even make it away from the door before she hears his voice. 

"Your bag? You need a bag?" 

She sighs to herself, trying to conjure a memory of the pain that comes with witnessing a death so she can convince herself that it's not worth her troubles to kill Stiles. "He didn't tell you, did he?" 

Derek shifts his weight from one foot to the other, quite possibly looking more worried than she's ever seen him before. "Tell me what?" 

"We're going to Portland." 

/-/ 

Lydia Martin's first love dies in front of her - twice. 

The first time is on the lacrosse field and Scott has to physically pull her off of his body because maybe Melissa McCall is weak enough to give up, but Lydia Martin has never given up on anything in her life, and she's not going to start with breathing fucking _life_ back into her boyfriend. So there's some kicking and swearing and attempted hair pulling and tears when Scott drags her away, whispering his rushed string of apologies. 

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so, **so** sorry. _

The second time is worse because she has to watch it happen, not just stumble upon the aftermath. 

Both times, she doesn't know how to explain to anyone that her heart stops the same instant his does. She doesn't know how to describe the feeling of something being ripped away inside of her, deep down and essential, with enough force to rob her of her breath. Both times, she thinks she might be crazy with grief - even after he gets back up to his feet and walks away. 

But it's nothing like the wracking pain of being separated from her best friend. She's spent years surrounding herself with people who want to be her and are willing to wait on her hand and foot so that they might absorb some of whatever makes Lydia _Lydia_ and learn her ways through osmosis. But Allison is different. She becomes the first real friend Lydia has, and then she's gone. And Lydia screams because she doesn't know what else to do with the pain coursing through her body or the force of some part of Allison's soul being yanked from somewhere inside her. 

Not even 48 hours later, the boy who last spent the night in her bed is gone, too, and she's left feeling numb after the pain goes away. 

Xanax helps. First thing in the morning, again before bed, sometimes in between when she thinks she sees Aiden standing beside her locker with blood dripping from the corner of her mouth, or she hears Allison's voice in her empty bedroom. She blocks it out. She ignores it. 

She lets herself become numb. 

/-/ 

By the time they're on the expressway, Derek's jawline is set firmly enough to cut through the tension if he tried, but he doesn’t. After his reaction to their destination ( _Portland? There isn’t an oral surgeon in California?_ ) and her refusal to accept the blame ( _Stiles should’ve told you. **He** knew we were going to Portland._ ) Derek is characteristically silent. Dark and broody and foreboding enough to keep her attitude from getting the best of her. 

But silence is a problem. She asked Stiles because Stiles isn’t a werewolf with supernatural hearing. And the longer she sits there in silence the more convinced she becomes that he can hear it. 

She doesn’t ask for permission before she reaches over to turn on the radio, and she’s met with the soaring string melody of INXS. 

She’s never thought much about Derek Hale’s taste in music. She wouldn’t have been surprised to hear something dark and disturbing, or maybe even something folksy to match his brooding. Even Dave Matthews because there’s something about pictures of pre-fire Derek that always make her think that if he had ever gone off to college, he would’ve become a total _bro_. Instead, he apparently listens to 80’s rock ballads at high volumes when he’s alone in the car. 

Alone being the key word because he immediately reaches over to switch from the CD player to the radio, then turns the volume down. Some overplayed pop song that she hopes is loud enough to drown out everything else plays instead. “80’s music is fine,” she says off-handed with a shrug of her shoulders. It’s the first time either of them has spoken since they left the loft (after he had packed the overnight bag Stiles forgot to mention he might need), and she thinks Derek might’ve flinched at the sound of her voice. 

“That wasn’t mine,” he says firmly without looking away from the road. 

“I wasn’t judging.” 

“Well, it’s not.” 

Lydia raises an eyebrow that implies at least a little judgement. “This is your car.” 

“You know, Portland is nine hours away,” Derek says instead of continuing the argument, and Lydia knows this has been brewing just below the surface since he heard the word _Portland_. She can thank her own comment for finally setting him off. “There’s really _no_ other oral surgeon capable of removing your wisdom teeth between here and there?” 

He looks away from the road long enough to steal a quick glance at her, and her cheeks burn so hot, she has to look away. She feels like she’s wearing it on her sleeve. _Wrong procedure_ is written across her forehead in permanent marker. There’s a scarlet A tattooed on her chest. 

“He comes highly recommended,” she says instead because it just feels like her sin is branded on her skin for the world to see. 

Derek lets it go. 

/-/ 

The first guy is her ride home - Correction, he was supposed to take her home, but after that much vodka, it’s harder to tell the difference between _my place_ and _yours_. 

She meets him after Allison’s funeral - after the luncheon at the McCalls’ because the Argents’ apartment is too small for the crowd it draws, after Scott transitions from co-host who takes coats and hands out drinks to catatonic survivor on the couch in the living room, after a still weak Stiles refuses to leave with his dad and dozes off on the couch beside his best friend instead, after her heart starts to beat its wings wildly within the cage of her ribs and she suddenly can’t breathe. Just _after_. 

She should go home after she slips through the crowd and escapes the McCalls’, but Allison’s sweater is hanging off the chair at her vanity and every inch of her bed smells like Aiden, so she finds a bar closer to Berkeley’s campus that hasn’t checked IDs in years. He takes the stool next to her, he buys her a drink, then three more, and then he offers to take her home. 

She can’t remember who suggested his place instead. 

He’s taller than Aiden and less muscular. He’s not Allison’s type, he doesn’t smell like Jackson’s cologne, he doesn’t bring up the fake car-jacking Scott reported to the police when she mentions growing up in Beacon Hills. He’s perfect in her alcohol-induced haze. 

For a half hour, he forces her to focus on a part of her body that isn’t that throbbing scream in the middle of her chest, the hollow below her heart where tiny pieces of Allison and Aiden and Boyd and Erica were ripped out of her. It’s like a drug, one she thinks she might crave again soon. 

She never even learns his last name. 

She wakes up in the morning with a pounding head and a dry mouth, and enough regret to last her two more lifetimes. The cash she has in her clutch is barely enough to cover the cab ride home. 

The second time is easier. No one else attends Aiden's funeral, so it’s easy to leave the cemetery alone. He looks even less like Aiden, absolutely nothing like Jackson. She doesn’t even bother to spend the night. 

The third time is even easier, so she doesn’t stop there. 

/-/

The radio fails her somewhere north of San Francisco. Derek runs through his pre-programmed stations after they lose the top 40’s one, each its own unique frequency of static, before he just turns it off. 

Lydia tries to entice him with conversations about the latest pack threat she knows about and the Kurt Vonnegut novel that was on his coffee table at the last pack meeting she attended, but his answers are all monosyllabic, so she gives up and stares out the window instead. She silently wills it to be quiet, wills his superhuman hearing to fail him. 

He figures it out when they’re just barely out of the city. She knows the minute it happens because he’s suddenly watching her more than he’s watching the road. She doesn’t know if it’s better to just confess or to pretend like she doesn’t feel his eyes boring holes into the side of her head, so she stays quiet, hoping the heavy aroma of fear coming from her skin is answer enough to his unspoken question. 

They both jump at the sound of her phone vibrating somewhere near her feet. 

She rummages through her purse as quickly as possible, only to find Stiles’s number across the screen. She presses _Ignore_ and drops the phone back into her bag without looking at Derek. “Telemarketer,” she explains when his eyes are still on her. 

And now that the ice is broken, Derek clears his throat. Lydia cringes, waiting for whatever question follows. “Are they going to put you under for this?” he asks. It would’ve been better if he was just straightforward. 

“You mean, as in anesthesia?” Derek nods, swallows so hard she can watch his Adam’s apple bob. “Why do you think I need a ride?” 

He’s quiet with his eyes on the road for long enough to make her think she’s suffering from paranoia and he doesn’t know a thing. And then he has to open that mouth again. “Are you sure it’s safe?” 

“It’s fine,” she snaps. Telepathically, she orders him to _let it go_. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Why do you care so much?” 

Derek sighs, his head falling back against the headrest. He knows. And without meaning to, she just confirmed it. 

“Is this why you’re sober for once?” 

“Fuck you.” 

“Nice, Lydia.” 

“Well, I don’t think it’s any of your business.” 

“You made that clear last time.” He sighs a second time as he rubs a hand over his face. Suddenly, he looks old and worn out and tired. He looks the way she feels. “Does Stiles know?” he asks with a sidelong glance. 

“Know _what_?”

“Does Stiles know you’re pregnant?” 

/-/ 

Two days after the funeral, they all decide to go back to school because there’s safety in numbers. But then Stiles can’t make it down the stairs without getting winded, so his dad keeps him home, and Scott “oversleeps” because Allison was in his first hour AP Language class. Lydia arrives alone, and she leaves alone after the sub in AP Psych reads Allison’s name aloud while taking roll. 

After that, her attendance is sporadic. She shows up to Trig, but she asks to have her seat moved so she doesn’t have to look at Stiles out of the corner of her eye. She likes Painting enough to keep going, and she makes it to APUSH, even though she lacks the motivation to take notes on the Civil Rights Movement. But AP Psych is out of the question because she sat next to Allison. She doesn’t show up to the Counseling office for her period as a runner because her last run was usually to Coach’s office where Aiden would be waiting. She slips out every day before sixth period lunch because she has no desire to round out the tattered remnants of the pack. 

Eventually, being in the same classroom as Stiles is too much, pretending to care about APUSH is too much, feigning creativity is too much. It’s not a problem to stop going when there’s no one at home to answer the call from the Dean’s office. 

Pack meetings are next on her list of Things She Doesn’t Need to Attend. Before she stops physically going, she stops participating. She shows up to an emergency meeting one Sunday morning nursing a hangover with oversized sunglasses and a glass of orange juice that’s mostly vodka. She refuses to go with the pack to Mexico when Derek is missing, blaming a nonexistent case of the flu. She falls asleep curled up against the arm of Derek’s couch on Friday nights when she’s spent the afternoon drinking until she’s too numb to feel hollow. 

None of it’s a problem until the Friday when Derek corners her in the kitchen with an olive branch in the form of a coffee cup. 

“Maybe you should talk to someone,” he says when she refuses the mug in his hands. 

“Did you?” she challenges because no one who keeps to himself this much isn’t in need of therapy. 

“After the fire, yeah.” She issues a second challenge in the form of a raised eyebrow. “Not right away,” he corrects himself then. “But eventually, when I realized it wasn’t going to go away on its own.” 

“Then, by all means, _please_. Point me in the direction of someone I can tell all about how my best friend was killed by a fucking fox that possessed my other best friend.” 

“Okay,” he says, all smugness with his arms crossed over his chest. “Marin is still at Eichen House.” 

She feels herself bristle at the suggestion. “I don’t need Eichen House.” 

“Well, you need something. _This_ isn’t helping.” 

“I’m fine.” 

“No one’s fine right now, Lydia. No one expects you to be fine right now. Grief takes time.” 

“Good news, then: I’m not grieving.” He opens his mouth to argue again, but she holds up a hand. “You were a shitty Alpha the first time around, okay? No one needs you to try again.” 

He manages to pull her aside the following Friday. The cut above his eyebrow gained from the glass she threw at his head heals before they step out of the kitchen, but the rest of the pack already heard their shouting match. After that, she stops attending pack meetings, too. 

/-/

Just over the state line, Derek stops for gas. Lydia leans against the side of the car as she pulls her phone out against her better judgement and listens to the voicemail. 

_Hey, Lydia. It’s Stiles. Just checking to see if Derek showed up this morning… I know I should’ve called to tell you that I asked him to take you after you asked **me** to take you, but our conversations haven’t been very, uh, productive lately, so…. yeah. Let me know. Call me. Or text me. Send a smoke signal, carrier pigeon, owl... Whatever floats that boat of yours... Okay, that wasn’t funny. Just call me. _

She’s in the middle of sending him a text ( _He did_.) when Derek rounds the car, bringing his own phone up so it’s inches away from his face. “When were you going to tell me?” 

The results of his latest Google search are pulled up, the address she had given him to program into his GPS filling the search bar. She answered all of his questions before, confirming that he’s the only one who knows and the sound he had caught when the radio dropped every station was a heartbeat, but she hadn’t supplied any additional information. Honestly, she hadn’t expected him to care this much. But he pieced together _baby_ and _Portland_ , and now, with her lie there before her face, she swallows hard before she composes herself and meets his furious gaze. “Tell you what?” 

“Goddamnit, Lydia!” He smacks the side of the car, and she has to fight the urge to flinch. “How stupid do you think I am? Last time I checked, clinics like this don’t hire too many _oral surgeons_.” 

Her mouth is a tight line as her mind races past possible explanations, none of which are the truth. In her carefully laid plan, this moment comes when Stiles is dropping her off in the morning. He tries to talk her out of it before she gets out of the car, promising her support even though this responsibility isn't his, but she argues that this is what she _needs_ to do with a hand pressed to his cheek. He insists on walking her in, on waiting in the waiting room, on being there with her hand firmly grasped in hers the whole way back to the hotel. But Derek isn’t Stiles. 

“You’re right.” 

He’s caught off-guard by her honesty. His eyes narrow as he waits for her to say more; when she doesn’t, his expression becomes more incredulous. “That’s _it_? That’s all you have to say?” 

“What do you want me to say? I made up my mind. It’s _my_ decision. You’re not going to talk me out of this now.” 

“That’s not the point!” 

A car horn sounds directly behind them, and Lydia jumps. Someone’s waiting for the pump they’re taking up space in front of, and Lydia doesn’t think she’s ever been so grateful for a stranger before. Derek soundlessly walks away, but he makes up for the stoic silence by slamming his door, cranking the keys in the ignition, wrenching the car into drive. 

“You’re so goddamn _selfish_ ,” he says as he peels away from the pump and takes that first turn a little too fast. “You were going to let Stiles take you, Lydia. Did you even think about what that would do to him?” 

Lydia is silent, arms crossed over her chest and her eyes focused on the wall. She doesn’t care if Derek Hale thinks she’s selfish. She really doesn’t care what Derek Hale thinks at all. 

They’re back on the expressway before she opens her mouth again. “Stiles deserves it.” 

Derek scoffs at first, but it turns into a laugh, and then he’s shaking his head and laughing, and she wonders if maybe they’re all losing it in this aftermath. “Fuck you, Lydia,” he says, echoing her own words from earlier. She’s half-tempted to look over at him now because the rest of them sound like truck drivers during pack meetings, but she doesn’t think she’s ever heard him swear before. Still, she keeps her resolve and stares straight out the window, even when he stares at her for longer than he should go without watching the road. “Just - just fuck you. He’s a victim, too, and he already has a guilt complex the size of Texas. He doesn’t need this on his conscience too.” 

“Well, it’s not like he’s here anyways.” 

Derek doesn’t have anything to say to that. He also doesn’t turn around to take her back home. 

/-/

Before she stops going to school and pack meetings and lacrosse games on Saturday afternoon, Stiles tries to talk to her. 

The first time is in Trig, post-moved seat. He slides into the seat next to her without a cocky opening line or his new Malia shadow. “Can we talk?” he asks instead, sincerity and guilt replacing the normal size of his ego. 

She pretends like he’s not there as she copies down the warm-up problem from the board. 

He sighs as he slouches in the chair, knee bouncing to match the tapping of his pencil on the desk. “Will you just hear me out? Even Derek _freaking_ Hale gave me that much.” 

But she hasn’t finished the problem by the time the teacher introduces Stiles to his assigned seat on the opposite side of the room. 

The second time is at the last pack meeting she attends, before the incident with the glass in the kitchen. He’s waiting outside of Derek’s building for her, and he grabs her arm when she tries to walk right past. “Let. _Go_. Of me,” she seethes through gritted teeth. 

“Look, Lydia, I’m sorry, okay?” 

But it’s not okay. Scott tells her that it wasn’t Stiles. Derek argues that it could’ve been any of them. Logic tells her that he wasn’t there when Allison took her last breath. But still, every time she looks at him, she can only think about how she was hunched over his broken body _feeling fucking **sorry** for him_ when her best friend died. 

So, no, it’s not okay. 

She yanks her arm away from his grasp and shoves his shoulder with her own when she walks past him. Halfway through the pack meeting, she’s in the kitchen, throwing a glass at Derek’s head. 

Stiles stops trying to say he’s sorry after that. 

/-/ 

The radio refuses to pick up another station, so Derek switches back to the mix CD after the gas station incident. After INXS, there’s a Billy Joel song that Derek immediately skips, some Pat Benetar, and the song from _Top Gun_. Lydia doesn’t comment on the music again because she knows he’s trying to drown it out. 

Derek pulls into the parking lot of the hotel a little after eight. It’s a mile and some change from the clinic, and she’s thinking about using a fraudulent charge defense when the credit card statement comes. Somewhere in the middle of the last five hours, she explained that her appointment is first thing in the morning, so they’re just spending the night tonight, so there doesn’t seem to be anything to say as she grabs her bag from where it’s resting at her feet and heads for the front desk. 

Inside the room, Derek doesn’t say that the hotel is too nice for what they’re doing in Portland, but it hangs heavy in the air. She takes the bed farthest away from the door. He opens the door to the balcony before climbing into bed. She gets up to close it once she thinks he’s fallen asleep. When she wakes up in the middle of the night, it’s open again. 

She asks him about it in the morning - when she’s already been up for hours, sitting on the edge of the bed all ready to go even though her appointment isn’t for another hour - but he just shrugs his shoulders. She guesses he’s not talking to her now. 

But he does talk to her when they’re outside the clinic and her hand is on the door handle. “Wait,” he says with a gentle hand on her shoulder. 

Lydia sighs, steels herself for the look in his eyes that she already knows will make her want to agree. Yes, she doesn’t have to do this. Yes, she can find a way to make this work. Yes, a lot of terrible things have happened, but this doesn’t have to be one of them. 

All of the things he thinks he’s supposed to say are written across his face when she turns around, so she wraps her hand around his where it rests on her shoulder instead and gives it a gentle squeeze. “I know,” she says so he doesn’t have to say any of them. “But I’m going to anyways.” 

“I was going to say you’ll feel it. Like you did with Allison and Aiden. You’re gonna feel this, too.” 

“I know. But it won’t hurt like that.” 

How could it when she’s only known about _it_ for two weeks? 

He insists on at least going in with her. She doesn’t try to talk him out of it. 

/-/ 

She doesn’t know when it happens or who it happens with. She doesn’t know the date or the day of the week. She lost track of dates and days of the week in Week Two of Life Post-Allison, which is how it takes her too long to figure it out, according to the sunny state of California. 

In the end, there’s ten pink lines and a dent on her credit card that she’ll have to explain away at the end of the month. Sitting in the bathroom surrounded by empty-cardboard-boxes-turned-confetti to hide the evidence, she gets as far as Allison’s voicemail before she realizes her mistake. She needs to feel numb after that, but she makes herself stop drinking come morning. Even though she already knows she can’t keep it. 

It’s the first good decision she tries to make cancel out this mistake. 

She puts the Xanax back in her mother’s medicine cabinet. She starts going to all of her classes, even AP Psych and her guidance aide period. She almost finds a church Sunday morning, but she wakes up nauseous enough to not need to see two more pink lines. 

Doing her Trig homework and finding Jesus won't make this go away. 

Instead, she calls a clinic two hours away and makes an appointment because she needs something stronger than good deeds to absolve this sin. The following afternoon, the physician’s assistant makes her listen to the heartbeat before she tells her that _congratulations_ , she’s two weeks past the legal cutoff. 

So she calls the clinic in Portland instead. 

/-/ 

She knows the second that it ends. And she screams. 

/-/ 

Lydia wakes up with a start. Sitting up, gasping for breath, aching. 

Everything _hurts_. 

She doesn’t realize Derek’s even there until the hand that hasn’t been holding hers is trying to slow her down. “Hey, Lydia, it’s okay.” 

“I want to go.” 

Her throat is still raw from the force of her wail. There’s a throbbing pain settling in her lower abdomen, a sharper one between her thighs when she moves too quickly. The hollow below her heart hurts worst of all, swallowing her whole. It’s going to be the death of her - she can feel that, too. 

“They had to sedate you. You were screaming.” 

She was wrong. This is worse. ( _So_ much worse.) This hurts worse. ( _So_ much worse.) 

“They let me back here. They thought you wouldn’t want to wake up alone.” 

“I want to _go_.” 

“We will, we will. Just take it easy, okay?” 

“I need to get out of here.” 

She brings her knees towards her chest and her elbows to her knees, curling around that empty place inside of her. Tears swim in her eyes as she presses her shaking hands to her face. Every part of her is hollow now, ripped away with Erica and Boyd, Allison and Aiden, and now this. 

“We will, I promise. They just want to watch you for a little while,” he says as he rubs the place between her shoulder blades. It only makes her feel more numb. 

She’s visibly crying by the time she lifts her face. “I can still feel it. I can’t stay here.” 

“Okay,” he says, and she knows he understands. “We’ll go.” 

/-/ 

They’re supposed to go home afterwards. She gives them two hours for the procedure, an extra hour through the heart of San Francisco during rush hour, a half hour to stop for something to eat because she can’t take painkillers on an empty stomach. They'll still be home before ten that night. But she doesn’t plan on anesthesia and the time it takes to come back around, plus an hour of observation that becomes a half hour when she signs a waiver against the doctor’s recommendation. 

Lydia doesn’t remember a decision to come back to the hotel, but everything’s fuzzy after the nurse gives her something for the pain. It might have been her idea and not Derek’s at all. 

She goes to bed, and he leaves her alone. Even in the drug-induced fog, though, she knows he never actually leaves her alone. He’s always there, like the static of a TV left on. He buzzes somewhere on the edge of her vision. At some point, she’s lucid enough to hear him say Stiles's name from the direction of the balcony, but not lucid enough to reason that he must be on the phone. 

In the middle of the night, she wakes up to a cool breeze coming from the doorway leading to the balcony and a sharp pain in her abdomen leaving her gasping for breath. She blindly bats her hand around the nightstand until she finds the bottle of painkillers, swallows one dry, welcomes the pain in the back of her raw throat as a distraction from the pain tearing her apart. 

“Lydia, you okay?” 

She doesn’t know if Derek was already awake or if she’s woken him up in her quest for relief. She manages a muffled _M'fine_ against her pillow as she curls around that emptiness and slips her warm hand under her tank to press it against her sore abdomen. 

“Lydia -” 

“I’m fine. I said I’m _fine_.” 

There’s a sigh and then the groan of springs in the bed next to her own. Her eyes are squeezed shut and she’s fighting off a wave of nausea when she feels the mattress dip beside her. Lydia’s whole body stiffens even before his hand comes around her front and moves beneath her tank to rest above her own. “C’mere.” 

She gasps when she feels the way her pain seems to evaporate, pulled through her skin by his hand. She wants to resist it, to insist that he return to his own bed, to seem stronger than this. But with the pain gone, she can feel that empty ache and the part of her that’s been missing since nine o’clock that morning, and without warning, she’s sobbing in the circle of his arms. 

He knows to just hold her, leaching away her pain even though she never asked. 

“I felt it happen,” she says when the aftershocks of her breakdown leave her shaking when she takes a deep breath. 

“I know.” She can feel the way his voice vibrates against her back, filling some of that hollow space for ten seconds. 

“I felt Allison, too. And Aiden.” 

“I know, Lyd.” 

“I want it to stop.” 

The painkillers kick in before she hears his response. 

/-/

Lydia wakes up to a boy in her bed, and it doesn't feel as foreign as it should. There have been a lot of boys in the months following her best friend's death. Except that this isn't her bed, and the boy lying next to her is Derek Hale. And the only reason she doesn't feel impossibly empty is because his hand is still beneath her shirt, temporarily filling that hollow spot. 

The previous day comes back in a series of snapshots that don't fit together like they should while she tries not to stir in his arms. The sound of her own scream in her own ears. The feeling of Derek's warm hand that's softer than it looks anchored around her own. An ache in her thighs that feels worse every time she moves. Derek's frustrated voice as he says he won't take a picture and something about her not looking like a chipmunk. (She thinks Stiles’s name was in there somewhere, too.) 

The only thing she remembers clearly is the way he slipped into bed beside her last night, never making a sound as he began to drain her of that steady throb. 

It takes her awhile to realize that his breathing isn't quite even and the way his legs move against her own isn't the lazy movements of someone who's fast asleep. So she finally lets herself shift within the warmth of his arms. She moans softly like she's just starting to wake, and then steals a glance over her shoulder where she can tell he's been watching her. 

"Sorry," he says quickly, looking as uncomfortable as he did two days ago standing on her front porch. "I must've fallen asleep." 

"It's okay." She holds his gaze until her cheeks start to burn, and then she looks away quickly. She knows she should pull away from him, get up and pack her things. But this isn't like the other nights she's spent as of late. This feels... This feels like she's still a little hazy from the painkillers she took in the middle of the night. Her fingers circle around his wrist to pull his arm away, but his grip on her tightens. 

"It's gonna hurt - When I pull my hand away, you’re gonna feel it again." 

"I know. It's okay." Derek makes no move, though. She counts to ten as she studies the generic painting on the wall across from her, but he's still laying there, holding her like this is normal. "You can get up now." 

He's right, it hurts. It takes her breath away as it blooms inside of her, returning much faster than it disappeared the night before. It makes her ache from just above her knees to just below her heart. It causes her to vomit before she has a chance to take anything else for the pain. 

Still, Lydia Martin, newly baptized survivor, insists on getting herself ready. The only help she accepts is when she realizes what she packed is all wrong, and she lets him go down to the gift shop to find a gaudy pair of sweatpants she fully intends to burn back in Beacon Hills. 

Just as they're about to leave, she stops and turns back around to face him. (He's somehow also managed to grab her bag for her, and the pills she took on an empty stomach are draining her of her fight now.) "Thank you," she tells him as her face grows warm for the second time that morning. "For last night." She drops her gaze before he can say anything and brushes past him. But she stops with her hand on the door knob and turns back around to face him. 

"For all of this." 

/-/

Lydia falls asleep almost as soon as they're on the expressway. She sleeps through Lake Oswego, Fairview, Oregon City, and Derek's hand pressed to her lower abdomen when she moans in her sleep. When she wakes up a few hours later, the sign on the next exit reads Gold Hill, meaning they're still in Oregon. 

There's a moment of panic when she realizes it's silent in the car with nothing to cover up the steady rhythm of her confession. But then she remembers that there is no more confession to be made, and the silence starts to suffocate her. She reaches over and turns the radio on for a second time without his permission. 

It's the mix CD that plays, and they're just outside of Gold Hill when INXS starts in with that promise to make wine from her tears. 

"It's Laura's CD," he tells her this time without looking away from the road. She turns her head to look at him, takes in the strong line of his jaw and the way that his hand is gripping the steering wheel just a little too tight. "She put it in my car, the last time she was in it. It stayed in my car, even afterwards, so when I got this car," he says with a shrug of his shoulders that makes him seem a little more comfortable saying this out loud, "It stayed, too.” 

Derek looks away from the road long enough to catch her watching him. She doesn't look away, though, and he takes it as an invitation to keep going. "And I, uh, I don't do well with doors. Not since the fire. My mom... You can still see the claw marks in the door. That's why - I mean, the loft has no doors. And why I kept the door open last night... And the night before." 

She hears the way his breath rattles in his chest, like he, too, is purged of some sin he's been carrying around. "We all have grief, Lydia," he says when he looks over at her again. "You just have to find a way to deal with it. You can't let it win." 

"I know," she admits as she looks back out the window, resting her chin on her raised knee. "I want to stop." 

This time, she means it. 

/-/

 

They stop at a diner once they’re back on California soil. It's one of several stops in a short span of time because even though she has her own unique supernatural tendencies, she didn't inherit the ability to self-heal. So it gets late, and she needs to eat something in order to take something else for the pain. And for the first time in two days, there's no tension between them. 

Over fries and a chocolate shake, Lydia finally asks for the help she's needed for months. 

"My mom worked with a banshee," he tells her after she's requested his assistance. "Deaton did, too. I'm not saying I know how to turn it off, but I think we can make it better." 

She's too exhausted to smile, but she does lift her eyes from where she's been watching her straw swirl around the watery remains of her milkshake. "Thank you." 

The waitress interrupts their conversation before he can say anything else, standing too close to Derek with her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands as she tries to win him over with the promise of an award-winning brownie sundae. Derek gives her an award-winning smile instead as he asks for the check, and Lydia rolls her eyes because he doesn't know how much worse he makes it. 

It's when he refuses cash for her part of the bill that she blurts out, "I'm sorry." 

He looks confused as he lays his card down on the table. "It's fine. It wasn't my business - " 

"No, I mean about what I said before." She starts to play with her straw again but resists the urge to study the scratched formica tabletop. "About you being a shitty Alpha." 

For the first time in 48 hours, Derek laughs out of something other than disbelief as he shakes his head. "It's true. I was a shitty Alpha." 

"You were fine." 

"I wasn't fine. I tried to take something that wasn't mine. Scott's _good_. He's the one who deserves it." 

"We need Scott," she agrees. 

"Yeah, we do." 

"But we need you, too," Lydia says with the same amount of conviction. "You helped Scott figure all of this out. You looked out for Stiles - You were right, about Stiles. He's been through just as much as the rest of us." Exhaustion has seeped its way into her bones so she's melting into the booth, and now it makes her throat tight and her eyes water so she has to pause, wait for it to pass before giving a tiny shrug of her shoulders. "You did this for me." 

He leans across the table, and for a second she thinks he might take her hand or touch her cheek, but he stops with his arms folded in front of him. "It was nothing, Lydia. Honest. You needed a ride." 

"Well, it wasn't just a ride." She abandons the straw and picks up the discarded wrapper instead, busying her hands with tying a knot so she has an excuse not to look at him. "You really get this whole pack thing." 

"Packs take care of each other," he says, and she likes the sound of it. 

The waitress returns and tries one more time to use her girl-next-door, dime-a-dozen charm to sweet talk Derek. When she finally gives up and retreats, Lydia is pretty sure that's a phone number written across the bottom of the receipt. 

"You ready to go?" he asks a minute later when his card's been returned to his wallet. They still have a few hours ahead of them. She'll need to stop again before they're safely back in Beacon Hills. But back in the car, there will be Laura's mix CD and traffic as they near the city, and this is the most honest conversation they've had since she admitted to being pregnant. 

"I thought about not doing it," she says instead of yes. He freezes with his hand gripping the side of the table, then lets go and sinks back into the booth. He doesn't sigh or complain. He gives her his full attention. "Before," she clarifies. "I thought about not doing it. But I couldn't. I'm a mess - I can't take care of someone else." 

This time, he really does reach across the table and takes her hand. "I think I made the right decision," she tells him because she feels like she needs to. 

"You did." 

"But I forgot how much it hurts. I can still feel it." 

He gives her hand a squeeze. "It'll go away." 

She has to swallow a couple times before she can talk without crying. "I don't know if I want it to." 

/-/

The last time they stop, they're less than an hour from Beacon Hills, but the dashboard says they're five miles from riding on fumes. Somewhere between San Francisco and here, Stiles called her again to leave another spastic voicemail _just checking in on the patient_. 

This time, she returns call, pressed up against the car, less than a yard away from Derek. 

"Lyds!" He says after a single ring, sounding more excited to talk to her than he has since she agreed to be his date to Homecoming sophomore year. "How's the mouth?" 

"It's good." 

"You giving Josh Hutcherson a run for his money? You know, with the whole square jaw thing?" 

For the first time in a long time, she smiles, and she doesn't feel as guilty as she thought she would. 

"I don't know. You'll have to ask Derek." 

"There'd better be pictures of this." 

"Look, I just wanted to tell you that I'm fine - I know you've been texting Derek since we left. And thank you, too. For calling Derek." 

He's so quiet, she wonders if the cell towers in this roaring town of 1500 just dropped her call. "Yeah, look, I'm sorry about that," he finally says, sobered. "I'm - Just, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry." 

"It's okay. I'm okay." The words feel good, finally free of her throat still raw with her grief. She feels Derek watching her. Out of the corner of her eye, she just barely catches his smile. "How's Malia?" 

Whatever she's been holding against Stiles in this aftermath, she leaves behind when Derek pulls back onto the expressway for the final stretch. 

/-/ 

It's dark by the time Derek pulls into the driveway, and she fell asleep curled up around that hollow that's starting to feel a little less hollow in the last hour, so he has to shake her awake. She's too tired and too sore to argue when he insists on carrying her bag to the door for her. 

"You sure you're okay?" he asks as she slides her key into the front door, after she made the mistake of tripping over the porch step in the dark and cried out when the throbbing in between her legs became sharper. "I can stay." 

"I'm _fine_ ," she insists for a third time since he woke her with a soft shake of her shoulder and a gentle _we're home_. 

"I don't mind." 

"I know. But I'm _fine_." She pushes the front door open to reveal the empty foyer leading to an empty house. Her mom won't be back from Cabo until the weekend. It's what made this the perfect time. She turns back around to face him, the confident and composed Lydia that's been overshadowed by the selfish and self-destructive Lydia for too long. "I just need to be alone." 

"Well, you can call," he says as he sticks his hands in his pockets, looking as unsure of himself as he did when he picked her up. "You _should_ call. If you need anything. You have the pack." 

"I know." 

"You have me." 

She shouldn't have a pack. She shouldn't have _anyone_. She's pushed them away and turned her back on them. She's blamed them for things they can't control, and she's placed demands on them that can't be met. And here is Derek Hale, hands in his pockets, standing on her front porch, promising her impossible things until they sound possible. 

And she kisses him. 

Two seconds too late, she realizes what she's doing, and she pulls back quickly, eyes wide. His fingertips burn against her hip, his stubbled cheek feels warm against her own. Neither of them pulls away when they should. 

"I'm going to blame that on the drugs," she says when he doesn't say anything. 

"Yeah. Okay," he agrees. There's a beat, and then he looks down to see his hand on her hip, and he yanks it away. She picks up her bag and ignores how warm her face feels. 

"I'll be fine," she tells him one last time. "Thank you - again - for everything." 

She slips inside before she can do anything else she will regret when the medication wears off. 

(All she really wants to do is kiss him again.) 

/-/ 

Lydia spends the summer taking classes to make up for the Incompletes she received on her report card at the end of the semester. She sits next to Malia, who is short just one math credit, in Trig, and she lets Stiles pretend he's helping them both, then corrects his math for Malia later. AP Psych feels foreign still without Allison sitting beside her, but it's different, too. Especially when she's reading her textbook sprawled out on the couch in the loft. Somehow, she managed to still pass Painting after missing nearly a quarter of the class, so she ends up with the last few weeks of July to spend with the pack, taking trips to the beach and laying around the loft and mending the holes that will never truly be filled again. 

Saturdays are spent with Derek. By the end of August, she can't turn it off, but she knows how to separate herself from the fierce pain that settles somewhere in her chest and then spreads until it becomes a scream. She's also starting to learn how to recognize the warning signs.

He gives her a purpose within the pack when he teaches her how to help keep them safe. 

One afternoon when she's flipping through Stanford's course catalog on his couch instead of starting on her application essay, he leans over and kisses her. 

After that, it just feels natural. 

/-/ 

Before, there was Jackson who decided who she was and held her down inside the mold he had created for her. After, she figures out who she wants to be. 

Before, there was Boyd and Erica. After, they learn important lessons. 

Before there was Aiden. After, there's the realization that it's okay to be by herself. 

Before, there was Allison. After, there's grief and heartache and pain. But there's also Malia and Kira and Liam. They find new beginnings in the void she leaves behind. 

Before, there was the pack. After, the pack is still there. 

After, there's Derek. It's new and it's different, but it feels _right_. It's the first part of her life that's felt right in a long, long time. 

After, Lydia finally finds hope.


End file.
